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Asuna started to develop feelings for Kirito about 1 1/2yrs in, starting with a certain event in the Murder Case side story. Kirito on the other hand is less clear, but it's something that slowly developed over the first half of vol.1

But that's how I feel about the whole Aincrad arc though. In a manner of speaking it's a bit like Tolkien's Simarillion, you get a bunch of different stories that covered various periods of the First Age, covering some of the key events and the key characters, but left much of it blank or mentioned in passing only. Heck, there are even inconsistencies and contradictions in the simarillion too, just like Aincrad

Asuna started to develop feelings for Kirito about 1 1/2yrs in, starting with a certain event in the Murder Case side story. Kirito on the other hand is less clear, but it's something that slowly developed over the first half of vol.1

With Aria/Rondo/Monochrome, the situation becomes a little more ambigious. I personally think that in the revised time-line, Asuna would leave Kirito sometime before the Black Cats Arc on a reasonably amicable note, Kirito being considered a friend, but not yet a love interest.

So, her feelings in Murder doesn't pop out of no where - it's roots laid in Aria/Rondo/Monochrome, but only really comes into being in Murder.

As for Kirito, I think it's worth remembering that about half of his time in SAO revolved around replacement Gold-fishes for Su-chan. Sachi (April), then Silica (February the next year, and possibly even up till the eve of Murder). And I still wonder how he got the courage to help Silica after Sachi. I wonder whether, in SAO Progressive, we might actually see Asuna interacting meaningfully again with Kirito even before Murder- perhaps even on the 50th Floor boss fight, where she manages to repay back what Kirito did for her in Aria, and get Kirito out of his semi-suicidal funk. Because I cannot see how RNR completely stopped that tendency.

It's an interesting commentary - the First Fourth of Kirito's time involved being a "Beater", his early adventures with Asuna, a period of loneliness. The next fourth kicks off with the Black Cats and Sachi, their lost, his hardcore "Solo" state, where he becomes more of a Soloer then than at any point before or after, and ends with RNR. The next Fourth covers the period between RNR and Murder- which includes the matter about Silica, but likely also quite alot of front-line fighting. It is only in the final Fourth, from Murder onwards that Romance becomes a consideration.

Unless Progressive re-writes quite alot of things, including the whole RNR affair, I'd say that Kirito spent anywhere between a quarter to half of his SAO time relying on replacement Goldfishes of Sughara for human contact and comfort. The other half of the time, Asuna was likely his main source of regular human contact and confidence. (Yes, I know I'm not counting Klein in, but it's quite vague how often Kirito interacting with him, and whether both of them ever deeply confided with one another).

When all this is taken into account, poor Sughara never stood a chance in ALO, just from the events of RNR alone. And so, she joined Kirito's Unrequited Feelings Club. If you were younger than Kirito, odds are, after Sachi. he might have been adverse to getting too close to Imouto-like figures like Silica. In a sense, I think if Asuna was younger than Kirito significantly, and not his equal, Kirito would never have opened up to her.

And I just watched some of the Cynical Brit's Videos. I'm now trying to think what it would be like if HE was trapped in Aincrad. (Yes, I know the ALF/Army is a good indication of the same scenario).

But that's how I feel about the whole Aincrad arc though. In a manner of speaking it's a bit like Tolkien's Simarillion, you get a bunch of different stories that covered various periods of the First Age, covering some of the key events and the key characters, but left much of it blank or mentioned in passing only. Heck, there are even inconsistencies and contradictions in the simarillion too, just like Aincrad

Heh, I've noticed. ;p

Tolkien Simarillion? First time I've ever heard of it, but I see. I agree that there're quite a few plot holes/inconsistencies, but I wouldn't consider the arc to be one massive plot hole, though.

Ye. We don't know if it'll be chronological, but he said that it'll focus on eliminating the plot holes and inconsistencies.

Exactly. He mentioned that it'd take years of writing to do that.

Hmm, well it would be nice if he incorporated all the short stories and whatnot into one chronological volume, though I imagine that would come out pretty long. Is there a page limit for Light Novels or anything like that?

__________________

By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, if you want to test a man's character give him power." - Abraham Lincoln

Hmm, well it would be nice if he incorporated all the short stories and whatnot into one chronological volume, though I imagine that would come out pretty long. Is there a page limit for Light Novels or anything like that?

It's just that some side stories would work better in flashback format. But yeah, I agree for the most part.

Not that I know of. All Kawahara has to do is keep writing more volumes if he wants to detail more events and whatnot.

With Aria/Rondo/Monochrome, the situation becomes a little more ambigious. I personally think that in the revised time-line, Asuna would leave Kirito sometime before the Black Cats Arc on a reasonably amicable note, Kirito being considered a friend, but not yet a love interest.

So, her feelings in Murder doesn't pop out of no where - it's roots laid in Aria/Rondo/Monochrome, but only really comes into being in Murder.

As for Kirito, I think it's worth remembering that about half of his time in SAO revolved around replacement Gold-fishes for Su-chan. Sachi (April), then Silica (February the next year, and possibly even up till the eve of Murder). And I still wonder how he got the courage to help Silica after Sachi. I wonder whether, in SAO Progressive, we might actually see Asuna interacting meaningfully again with Kirito even before Murder- perhaps even on the 50th Floor boss fight, where she manages to repay back what Kirito did for her in Aria, and get Kirito out of his semi-suicidal funk. Because I cannot see how RNR completely stopped that tendency.

It's an interesting commentary - the First Fourth of Kirito's time involved being a "Beater", his early adventures with Asuna, a period of loneliness. The next fourth kicks off with the Black Cats and Sachi, their lost, his hardcore "Solo" state, where he becomes more of a Soloer then than at any point before or after, and ends with RNR. The next Fourth covers the period between RNR and Murder- which includes the matter about Silica, but likely also quite alot of front-line fighting. It is only in the final Fourth, from Murder onwards that Romance becomes a consideration.

Unless Progressive re-writes quite alot of things, including the whole RNR affair, I'd say that Kirito spent anywhere between a quarter to half of his SAO time relying on replacement Goldfishes of Sughara for human contact and comfort. The other half of the time, Asuna was likely his main source of regular human contact and confidence. (Yes, I know I'm not counting Klein in, but it's quite vague how often Kirito interacting with him, and whether both of them ever deeply confided with one another).

When all this is taken into account, poor Sughara never stood a chance in ALO, just from the events of RNR alone. And so, she joined Kirito's Unrequited Feelings Club. If you were younger than Kirito, odds are, after Sachi. he might have been adverse to getting too close to Imouto-like figures like Silica. In a sense, I think if Asuna was younger than Kirito significantly, and not his equal, Kirito would never have opened up to her.

And I just watched some of the Cynical Brit's Videos. I'm now trying to think what it would be like if HE was trapped in Aincrad. (Yes, I know the ALF/Army is a good indication of the same scenario).

I'm not sure what you mean by replacement. He never relied on Sugara for human contact. Pretty much the opposite, before SAO he avoided her more then anyone.

I'm not sure what you mean by replacement. He never relied on Sugara for human contact. Pretty much the opposite, before SAO he avoided her more then anyone.

But he still cared about her. He expressed regrets to Silica about how he hadn't been able to tell things to his sister. And that wasn't the first time he mentioned his sister, either.

I've read a few of the sidestories, but I haven't gotten past volume 2 in the main, so I can't talk about what may have been revealed later on, but it seems pretty clear just with what I have read that he views certain girls as imouto-like characters, and tries to protect them in honor of his own sister.

But he still cared about her. He expressed regrets to Silica about how he hadn't been able to tell things to his sister. And that wasn't the first time he mentioned his sister, either.

I've read a few of the sidestories, but I haven't gotten past volume 2 in the main, so I can't talk about what may have been revealed later on, but it seems pretty clear just with what I have read that he views certain girls as imouto-like characters, and tries to protect them in honor of his own sister.

Exactly. Asuna was the only exception to that rule.

That rule very much governed the way he behaved with Sachi, Silica and even Lizbeth.

The queer thing is that even though the romance aspect has been so much praised, I think the side stories made it clear that for much of Kirito's time in Aincrad, his main psychological focus was to find some kind of human contact to fill the gap in emotional need he felt with regards to his Sister/Cousin we see in First Day.

Asuna on the other hand, interacted with Kirito on a whole different paradigm from the rest of Kirito's so called "harem." Have you noticed that most of Kirito's "harem" in a certain sense were stand-ins of sorts for Sughara?

So yes, even if Kirito had distance himself from his sister (it was implied though, there was a time a mere few years before SAO where they were closed), there was fundamentally an "Imouto" need that First Day captured very well that influence Kirito's behaviour significantly until at least Black Swordsman, if not Murder.

The thing is, he never ever really filled the gap well. He found something better to transcend beyond it - Asuna.

Asuna started to develop feelings for Kirito about 1 1/2yrs in, starting with a certain event in the Murder Case side story. Kirito on the other hand is less clear, but it's something that slowly developed over the first half of vol.1

well here are some problems with the Light Novel, first we do know that originally SAO was a web novel in fact it was supposed to be a Light Novel entry for Dengeki... but Reki just happens to exceeded the page count with a substantial margin and thats just SAO, ALO,GGO and Underworld were not written in this point in time during the Dengeki contest, so Reki decided to just post SAO as a web novel while at the same time keep on writing what he thinks of the sequels to the story thus ALO and GGO arcs were made, however the Underworld arc is up for debate as the Alicization Arc was meant to be a stand alone story independent of the events of ALO and GGO, however the re-occuring characters for the Underworld arc are still Kirito and Asuna, so this is where the material editions come in to play as these stories are basically what got lopped off from the published novels or else each volume could be as thick as a kyoukaisen volume and Dengeki may not have that much of a budget to publish one door stopper so they adivsed Reki to cut off some things from the original web novels so that it can be printed and published. So in a way until Dengeki decides for Reki to re-edit SAO (which he is willing to) then that is the only time when we can really see the true canon in SAO arc, which I got news of that SAO:Progressive (re-written SAO in part canon) will be part of the Blu-ray special

the Alicization Arc was meant to be a stand alone story independent of the events of ALO and GGO

Really? What happened then?

Quote:

So in a way until Dengeki decides for Reki to re-edit SAO (which he is willing to) then that is the only time when we can really see the true canon in SAO arc, which I got news of that SAO:Progressive (re-written SAO in part canon) will be part of the Blu-ray special

What do you mean by "part-canon"? SAO: Progressive will be part of the Blu-ray special? Where'd you hear that? Because, honestly, it sounds too good to be true..

That rule very much governed the way he behaved with Sachi, Silica and even Lizbeth.

Then I'd argue that it is not about age, but rather, as Lizbeth says ability to stand beside him on the battlefield. (Which Lyfa ironically possesses, but she was just straight up too late.)

Quote:

The queer thing is that even though the romance aspect has been so much praised, I think the side stories made it clear that for much of Kirito's time in Aincrad, his main psychological focus was to find some kind of human contact to fill the gap in emotional need he felt with regards to his Sister/Cousin we see in First Day.

I agree he has a save the girl syndrome. But I'd disagree he spend half of the two years in SAO focused on saving and unknowingly seducing every female MMOer he could hunt down. Where others just plain regret ever getting involved in MMOs, Kirito's only regret is leaving things this way with his sister. His main drive in SAO was his unceasing intention to be the best at the Sword Art Online.

The queer thing is that even though the romance aspect has been so much praised, I think the side stories made it clear that for much of Kirito's time in Aincrad, his main psychological focus was to find some kind of human contact to fill the gap in emotional need he felt with regards to his Sister/Cousin we see in First Day.

It wasn't really just about his sister. It was about his whole family and his place in it. He was hurt by learning he'd been lied to with regards to his origins, but at the same time couldn't deny the love he received, which made him feel guilty about feeling hurt, and so on. He was a bit of a mess.

Faced with the hedgehog's dilemma, he tried to avoid others, to avoid relying on others, to avoid having others rely on him, while at the same time craving human contact, feeling guilty about letting others down, and so on.

Asuna broke down his defenses by being able to take care of herself even on the frontlines where he lived, and by sheer determination not to let him get away.

It's just that some side stories would work better in flashback format. But yeah, I agree for the most part.

Not that I know of. All Kawahara has to do is keep writing more volumes if he wants to detail more events and whatnot.

Yes, some could work better whereas others like Yui's story could probably be well integrated before the whole business with the fishing. The Black Cats work as a flashback, but I'm not sure about RNR then. I feel that story might be weird to integrate as a flashback unless you had him think to it after telling Asuna the story or have him tell RNR as well.

Indeed, though it would be nice to have an eventual end. Or even some post end stories detailing what everyone ends up doing.

__________________

By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, if you want to test a man's character give him power." - Abraham Lincoln